Is it still January??

We spent last Saturday in Wausau, going to a Christmas party of the North Central Wisconsin Light Flyers (Chapter of EAA's ultralight assoc.) and then to meet Rosie at Hereford and Hops before she started work there that afternoon.
Above we see Sid Cohen's Ercoup plane. It's a light sport aircraft (small) with fabric covered wings and an aluminum fuselage that he obviously keeps REALLY shiny!!
Sid hosted the party at his hangar at the Wausau downtown airport.

I guess there were about sixty people there, some from Wild Rose, Phillips and points in-between. A far flung group of people with a common interest in, and a passion for, light flying.


It was a nice, sunny day with temps in the 30's. Some folks rolled their planes out of the hangars, some flew to the event.


The yellow plane in the background was especially nice. But then I'm partial toward bright yellow paint jobs!! This plane is called a Kitfox and was built by Paul S. They come as a kit, bags of rivets, boxes of parts, etc. He did an exceptional job on it and it has amphibious floats!! Maybe someday......

After the party we headed for H&H. Bryn had met us at the hangar and she went to H&H with us. We met up with Rosie about an hour before her shift. She gave me the mug from the Mug Club (mentioned in last post) and a handful of wooden nickel tokens for refills...... The sign above is over the backbar and list all their brewed-in-house offerings.


Yes, I probably had more than one 20oz mug-full... does that make me a bad person??? And this is yet another reason cameras should not be allowed around me. Oh, well, I still have a bunch of wooden nickels left for next time. They do brew some excellent beers there!!


They also have this nifty wood fired pizza oven built into one of the kitchen walls. One of those big masonry heat sinks that work really well for bread, pizzas and the like.

I just got home from flying session in Merrill. Sunny day with the highs in the low 40's!! Not bad for January in the Far Nort. Today was the first day in many fly sessions that had any wind. We have been anticipating some windy days so that I could work on crosswind landings. Sounds fairly innocuous, said like that. Well let me tell you, in a small light plane, 8mph of wind at your side can do amazing things to you! For starters there is all the mechanical turbulence created by buildings, trees, etc upwind of the runway. This stuff bounces you around pretty good, like you need some other diversion!!!! Anywho, if you are going to land a plane in a crosswind, you need to do something about the crabbing issue.... plane flies at an angle facing into the wind a bit. Now you can't hit the runway with the plane at an angle, or you would immediately be going off the side of the pavement. So to get the planes lengthwise axis parallel to the runway, you need to push the stick toward the windward side. This causes the plane to bank toward the wind, but it also makes it try to turn toward the wind, so you have to apply opposite direction rudder pedal. This overcomes the plane's tendency to turn and keeps it going straight down the runway. So in effect, it's like walking along and leaning your body into a strong wind. Kinda.... So now you're flying along with the plane rolled in the direction of the wind, coming down to the runway at 45mph, fighting the pesky blasts of air from the mech. turbulence. All you have to do at this point is gently set the plane down. Well, the first try was a bit of panic and wonder and exhilaration all at once. We made it O.K., a little bumpy, but O.K. Most of the landings after that got some better, one was quite shaky, but it was really interesting and fun!! For the final landing, I was allowed to come in on the runway facing the wind, like normal people would do. That was nice after the others. What a great night it was. Next time we fly I have requested that we revisit practicing stalls and recoveries from them, and also do some more of the forward slip to land, another exciting technique. Well, more later as it develops.


Did I mention that Westwood, my used-to-be favorite watering hole has burned down?? Bummer........